QatzelOk wrote:You mean the ongoing Western pillaging of Iraq, the construction of the multi-billion dollar American military base, the trillions in arms sales, and ongoing attacks on neighboring countries.... is all just one gigantic "misstep?"
The Iraq War was a failure on the part of policymakers who saw it as a good idea (e.g. the neocons), in that the subsequent and totally predictable rise of ISIS now puts that base on shaky footing. It also hasn't aided Perle's goal of a more secure Israel and especially not Chalabi's of a more secure Iran, due to ISIS' rise threatening both. Nor did Rummy meet his goal of reshaping the rules of modern warfare with a cheap and small-scale strike force to surgically take out Saddam Hussein, because the reconstruction that everyone else said would happen and he reacted to with "la la la whatever" happened. And it absolutely didn't become a functioning liberal, capitalist "democracy" like Wolfie wanted.
The defense contractors (Blackwater) and reconstruction industry (Halliburton) made a killing. And the Robert Gates great-power realpolitik types got what they wanted through keeping most of the oil in the ground thereby reinforcing the America-sphere's dominance of the oil markets, in turn meaning its grip on China. On the part of most of the war's initial planners though, I think it's fairly described as a failure even for their imperial goals. That leaders are self-serving does not also make them competent, and it does not benefit the left at all to view the haute-bourgeoisie as hyper-competent Randian supermen. They wish. Mostly they're just garden variety assholes who happen to be good at schmoozing.
Wow. Hard to believe that a single "step" could involve decades of bombing campaigns and total war for decades on an entire region.
The Iraq War usually refers in America specifically to the Bush II-era policies in Iraq, not the Gulf War/War for the Kuwaiti Monarchy or the Clinton administration's starvation sanctions.
What TV show did you get this information from?
Reporting from CNN, MSNBC, NYT, The Guardian. Op-eds from CounterPunch, Alternet, Thom Hartmann, The American Conservative to shake things up some.
Does Alex Jones know that the entire half-century of plunder in the Middle East (by the West) was just a slip of the foot?
Well over half-century, more like over half a millenia and even in its modern form about two centuries. And no, because Alex Jones is too busy talking about da loominati and the transsexuals in the bathrooms to confront the issue of imperialism.